Last year, I emailed rapper and Miami mayoral candidate Luther Campbell to ask if I could interview him for a magazine article I was writing about the state of Florida college football. He had been tweeting like crazy about the Miami Hurricanes’ search for a new head coach, so I thought it would be fun to pick his brain. He ended up calling me at 11:45 p.m. on a weeknight (hey, I need my beauty sleep) and we spoke for over an hour about a bunch of things, including the heyday of his seminal rap group – 2 Live Crew.
Of course I ended up losing the recorder and I never even got to transcribe the interview, but I might just have to call him again now that he has officially announced that 2 Live Crew is reuniting for a summer tour. Campbell, AKA Uncle Luke, has been at the Sundance Film Festival this week promoting his short documentary, The Life and Freaky Times of Uncle Luke, and he confirmed that the group that gave us “As Nasty as They Wanna Be” was indeed going to take the stage once again.
Growing up in South Florida, 2 Live Crew’s music was everywhere, especially with the controversy over the lewd lyrics, so of course us kids wanted to listen to it. I like to think that I owe those fine gentlemen for introducing my vocabulary to the glorious F bomb.
Now that the Crew is back, we can once again celebrate their iconic hits like the anthemic “Banned in the USA”:
I can still picture my friends and I huddled around a stereo in my friend’s garage, listening to 2 Live Crew albums on low volume and hoping that his mom didn’t catch us. But now we don’t have to worry about getting caught because we can openly celebrate our joy in watching a 51-year old jump around on stage as he yells, “Pop that Coochie!”
With that, we bring you today’s UPROXX discussion and the question – What music groups would you like to see reunite for a summer tour? I’ll start us off with the most logical choice: 3rd Bass. Just kidding. I’d actually like to see Faith No More follow through with the tease they pulled on us a few years ago when they reunited for a brief tour and promised a new album, but then bailed on it.
Damn you, Faith No More! We just want to see Mike Patton rolling around on the stage like a dead fish during the piano part of “Epic” one more time before we die. Is that too much to ask?